“Your face is perfect. It’s the most perfect face I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s nice to hear after I’ve been chasing dust bunnies.”

“Simon in school?”

“Yes.” Her eyes widened as she recognized the glint in his. “Well, for heaven’s—it’s almost ten in the morning. Don’t you have to work?”

“I do.” He stepped forward as she backed up. “But I made a little time because I needed to talk to you. Looks like talk’s going to have to wait.”

“We can’t just . . .” Could they?

“I bet we can. Let’s try this.”

He scooped her right up, and her stomach did a long, lovely roll as he started back toward her bedroom.

“Golly.” She couldn’t quite stop the nervous giggle. “Just like in a romance novel. Except I’d be wearing something sexier than old jeans.”

She smelled of her furniture polish and ripe plums. “There’s nothing sexier than old jeans when you’re in them.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Delighted, she nuzzled his neck. “That’s really good.” She nipped at his earlobe. “I’ve got laundry going. It sort of backed up on me the last few days. So . . . I’m not wearing anything under these jeans.”

He turned his head, looked into her laughing eyes. “Oh, yeah, then talk definitely has to wait.”

Her arms linked around his neck as he laid her on the bed, and she drew him in, welcoming. “This must be my reward for doing all my chores,” she murmured.

“I’ve thought about making love with you again ever since I made love with you.”

He took her lips with his, rubbed gently, then sank deep.

It was like her own personal miracle, Zoe thought as she let herself float on the moment. Being swept up and away by a man who could make her feel as precious as diamonds.

He kissed her as though he could spend his life doing nothing else but mating his lips and hers. He would spend time in the warmth even when she could feel the need for heat pulsing from him. The quiet joy of it, of him, wound around her heart in soft, silky ribbons.

He touched her as though her body was a delicate treasure he would never tire of exploring. Each caress with those marvelous hands soothed, stirred, and promised. The sweet wonder of it slid through her blood like wine.

Here, in the morning sunlight, was patience that glided over her in long, almost lazy strokes. She let herself rise under them and drift down again as the world outside went on its busy way without her.

Stealing time for each other added a gauzy layer to intimacy.

He toyed with flesh exposed by ripped denim, skimmed his fingers along where her blouse rode up. Heard the low sound of arousal as he traced the silver bar. When his lips nibbled down her throat, she turned her head and sighed.

All the worries, all the fatigue that had dogged her melted away.

He could feel her yield to him, to the pleasure, hear her breathing thicken as he took his time. Could she know what it meant to him to be with her like this, with the sun streaming through the windows and the house empty and quiet around them?

Could she know how much he needed her when he was only beginning to understand it himself?

He hadn’t known until that moment just how much he had to give, so desperately wanted to give. What he was, what he had, what he felt, what he imagined. His mouth covered hers again, and he offered all.

Her heart bounded into her throat, her hands clutching his shirt as emotions engulfed her. More than pleasure, more than the promise of it flooded through those seductive sensations. Trembling, she slipped under.

This was what he needed—the utter surrender to each other. Where there was no one and nothing but the two of them. “I want to look at you.” He rained kisses over her cheeks before easing her top over her head. “Just to look at you.”

Watching her, looking into those heavy, dazed eyes, he slid the denim down.

Smooth skin and subtle curves, long, almost balletic limbs. Those slumberous eyes and that siren’s mouth. She was, he thought, such a fascinating combination of the fragile and the exotic.

Bending, he pressed his lips to the top of her thigh, gliding them slowly down over sensitive flesh as she shuddered.

He teased closer to the heat with his tongue. “I want you to lie there. And let me do things to you.”

She couldn’t have stopped him. She was already steeped in need, awash in sensation. When the first shock of heat slammed through her, she wrapped her fingers around the iron bars of the bed and let him take her anywhere he wished.

Here was glory and wonder. Those hands, so exquisite in their patience, unlocking every secret. That mouth tender and thorough, devouring her by inches. She bowed up as the orgasm catapulted through her, and still he didn’t stop.

Emotion careened against emotion, feeling against feeling until it seemed her senses were alive with light, her skin shimmering with it. And each time the ache built again, she welcomed it.

He was lost in her, aware of nothing but what she gave, and what he was compelled to take. Each time her body shuddered, there was more.

He rose over her. She encircled. He slid into her. She surrounded.

Slowly, still slowly, to drain every drop of pleasure even as it drenched them. The rise and fall of bodies, the beat of blood, the trip of pulse locked the world outside of that sun-filled room.

Somewhere time ticked away, cars rumbled past on the street, a dog barked at squirrels in a backyard, but she knew nothing but him. Heard nothing as she teetered on the edge of the world but her name, spoken almost like a prayer.

Then her own cry of joy as she leaped with him.

NO one, at any time or in any place, Zoe decided, had ever felt better than she did right here and now. No one had ever been more completely seduced or thoroughly pleasured.

Drifting in the afterglow, she stroked her fingers through Brad’s hair.

His head rested between her br**sts, and his hand covered hers at her side. It was the sweetest combination of sensations, she’d ever felt.

“I’m so glad you dropped by,” she said sleepily, and smiled when she felt his lips curve against the side of her breast.

“Glad you happened to be home.”

“This is all so . . . gorgeous. Lying here, all naked and satisfied at . . .” She turned her head to check the clock. “Mmm, ten minutes to eleven in the morning. Better than winning the lottery.”